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Thursday, September 12, 2013

Where's the Love? Oh I know...

It's with the book lovers!

This week has been awesome. I went a little out of my comfort zone and auditioned for something that normally I'd be too nervous to try, and it was so fun! It's been a great opportunity to interact with more people in the YA community.

A lot of times when you're a writer (especially an unpublished/unagented one), it's easy to get discouraged because it feels like you're just writing. But what about all those awesome people who are total book BFFs and have that perfect relationship that you want and all the authors tweet each other and it's this circle that it feels like you'll NEVER break into? They have it all! Friends! Book deals! Websites that get visited by more than three people per month! They live in hip apartments that make cluttered look cool! So why does my apartment just smell funny and why haven't I had any human interaction all day?

Before this week, these were the kinds of questions that could send me back into sweatpants for the rest of the day (not that it takes much to do that). Today, though, I had an epiphany. As I was checking the comments I'd received on a YouTube video posted, I realized that I had been acting a little like Rapunzel in Tangled. She sits up in that tower all day and even though she has everything that she needs to get out, she doesn't. But once she does take one small step, she finds what she's looking for.
That's EXACTLY what goes on in the YA community. Everyone is so so friendly and willing to talk with you, but there are so many people out there who also want to write and be a part of that world (cue Little Mermaid song here?) that if you don't go out of your comfort zone, you won't find what you're looking for.

I went out of my comfort zone. You better believe that anytime I think about it, adrenaline spikes through my arms and legs and I feel the slight urge to run and delete my YouTube account and drown my lonely sorrows in ice cream and puppies.

But I don't.

Because even though I haven't become instant best friends with anyone and I am not in any seemingly exclusive author-y circles, I have met people. Nice, amazing people who are maybe also going out of their comfort zone to make friends. And sometimes it's scary, but it is cool to know that the bouncer of the super exclusive YA club is actually me. Or you.